IRVING, Texas — 7-Eleven has launched 7Voice, which enables voice ordering capabilities for its 7Now order and delivery app, allowing customers to place orders through Google Home and Amazon Echo systems.
With a simple voice command, shoppers can instruct Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa to open the 7Now delivery app. Customers can choose from a wide variety of items by simply speaking them into their home system. Items that can be ordered include beverages, fresh and hot foods, snacks, cosmetics, home goods and thousands of other products available for purchase.
Once customers place and pay for a 7Now voice order, the selected 7-Eleven items are delivered in about 30 minutes or less.
"We continuously challenge ourselves to find even more ways to offer convenience and value to our customers, when and where people need it most," said Raghu Mahadevan, 7-Eleven vice president of digital and delivery. "7Voice takes 7Now ordering from screen to voice, enabling customers to order in whatever way they prefer that is most convenient to them."
The 7Now app auto-locates a customer's location and places the order at the nearest participating 7-Eleven store. A courier will pick up the order and deliver it to the specified address in 30 minutes or less. Using real-time tracking, 7-Eleven can let customers know when to expect their orders.
No minimum order is required, and the service is available 24/7. Delivery for the first 7Now order is free, and the regular delivery fee is $3.99.
"Whether customers are shopping in our stores or from their couch, we want every interaction with 7-Eleven to be easy and fast with a variety of options," Mahadevan said. "We are constantly researching and developing ways to take both in-store and at-home retail experiences to the next level."
7-Eleven introduced delivery in late 2017 when it began testing the app-based service at select stores in Dallas. 7Now has made more than 1 million deliveries and is available in 34 major metropolitan areas, with more than 200 cities, serving more than 30 million households.
Voice ordering builds on the company's rapid digital ramp-up. In the past two years, 7-Eleven launched the 7Now delivery app and added the 7Now Pins option, enabling delivery to hundreds of public places; expanded its 7Rewards loyalty program to a points-based system; introduced mobile checkout in select stores; added various mobile payment options; implemented augmented-reality experiences in the 7-Eleven app; rolled out in-store package pickup via the 1,100 Amazon Lockers located at participating 7-Eleven stores; and more.
7-Eleven Inc. operates, franchises or licenses more than 66,000 stores in 17 countries, including about 9,200 in the United States. The chain is No. 1 in CSP’s 2019 Top 202 ranking of c-store chains by total number of company-owned retail units.
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